


Be My Significant Otter

by cognomen



Series: The Endless Adventures of Otter!Poe [4]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Animal transformation (references), Multi, Otter!Poe, Pack Dynamics, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 16:27:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6016416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>After a while, the novelty of swimming wears off, some. Poe still enjoys it, still feels good embracing something he hasn't for a while, but the compulsion to do it every day fades as the fall comes on and turns the water freezing. In the summer, the cold water's welcome. Now, even Rey avoids it, turning like Poe to the shower for her relief. </i>
</p><p>  <i>Maybe not exactly like Poe, since he doubts she fills the tub and floats in it with her eyes just above the water line, letting her body suspend just to feel buoyant, but you never really know until you get into the tub with someone.</i></p><p>  <i>He hasn't, yet.</i></p><p> </p><p>Otters are apparently deeply social creatures, forming close bonds and requiring a lot of social contact and the reinforcement of social status through play and grooming. Poe, of course, loves all of these things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be My Significant Otter

After a while, the novelty of swimming wears off, some. Poe still enjoys it, still feels good embracing something he hasn't for a while, but the compulsion to do it every day fades as the fall comes on and turns the water freezing. In the summer, the cold water's welcome. Now, even Rey avoids it, turning like Poe to the shower for her relief. 

Maybe not exactly like Poe, since he doubts she fills the tub and floats in it with her eyes just above the water line, letting her body suspend just to feel buoyant, but you never really know until you get into the tub with someone.

He hasn't, yet.

"I hate the cold," she tells him, raiding his wardrobe for sweaters. He doesn't protest - he has yet to when she or Finn takes his clothes. It gives him an excuse to go and get them back. Even when she triumphantly digs out the one sweater his mother had made - actually _knitted_ \- the year before she had died. It had been huge on him then, sized to fit him through some expected teenage growth spurt that never fully materialized.

"So, I'll strike 'snowball fight' off the 'to do' list," Poe says, watching her put on his clothes in a way he doesn't think he'll ever get tired of.

Rey wrinkles her nose at him, showing her straight teeth. "Please."

The sweater, now just a hair too small for Poe, fits her perfectly, at least in his opinion. The neck is loose enough to show off her collarbone, the sleeves baggy and warm, making her hands look _more_ petite somehow.

"What do you do about all the _fur_?" Rey asks, pulling Poe back from his considerations. 

"Fur?" he asks. 

She displays an extremely short sleek brown hair, pulled from the sweater. He can see several more scattered over the front surface, though he has no idea how they got into the dresser.

Poe laughs. "Are you sure that's not Chewbacca's?"

" _Pretty_ sure," Rey says, looking at him with sharp amusement as he stays sprawled on his bunk.

"Have you asked him?" Poe suggests, turning a charming smile toward her.

"No," Rey says, approaching his bed with a playfulness he recognizes as a threat. "But I could tell him you accused him of shedding on your clothes."

"You wouldn't," Poe calls her bluff.

"Why not?" Rey is very close now, her strong arms hidden in Poe's sweat shirt, though Poe is aware of her strength enough to read the signs of an oncoming wrestling match.

"Because," Poe says, the instant before she springs nimbly onto his chest like a hrosma tiger. "I happen to know you enjoy what I'm capable of with _both_ my arms."

She laughs and grabs for him, and Poe makes no protest until her slim, nimble fingers sink down low on his belly and exploit his weakness, tickling mercilessly until he has to fight back or wind up or be rendered helpless.

Not that he minds so much, to be helpless for Rey (or Finn), but he has a _little_ pride, and as such a show must at least be made before he just accepts Rey's dominance.

He thinks of it that way, even as they destroy his neatly made bed and kick a pile of his clean clothes off of it onto the duracrete floors. (He has an idea, then, how the fur made it into the dresser). Poe knows better than to go easy on her because she refuses to give him any such quarter. Instead, they join hands and lock fingers and shove and twist like animals play. Poe likes it, even when she's the one winning.

Maybe _especially_ when she's the one winning. He doesn't know if it makes her feel as comforted (and attached) as it does Poe, but it embarrasses him for a moment when it occurs to him that it may be related to the more unusual half of his biology. 

Then Rey flips him with her small bare feet on his thighs and he goes right over her head, his ass hitting the wall behind the bed and his feet planting flat on it in a subordinate sprawl that leaves his top half on the bed. He's amused - she always wins.

"I got bad news for you," Poe says, as she catches her breath and he catches his, looking at her upside down and resting his hands serenely atop his own chest when she releases his fingers. "Now you're _covered_ in fur."

She looks down at her stolen sweater and sighs in exasperation. Proximity to the blankets of his now-unmade bed has kicked up a plentitude of short brown-and-cream hairs. She sees the fur (and one or two of Poe's _regular_ hairs. Or Finn's. It can be hard to tell at a glance) like he intends her to but not his moment of inner turmoil like he doesn't intend her to. She makes a face.

"To answer your earlier question," Poe says, without moving from where she left him. "I deal with the fur one of two ways. Either blame a wookiee..."

She doesn't' seem to like this proposed solution. 

Poe continues, making a lazy gesture toward his dresser, "or make copious use of that roll of gaffer's tape."

Rey, with rolling eyes and a smile that gives her true feelings on the subject away, opts for the second solution. Poe is _almost_ sad to see her peeling the traces of their play and his presence off of her clothes.

-

For the next few days, Poe tries to figure out what it is about Rey pushing him around that he likes so much. Is it just his nature, or is it part of the 'something else' about him?

_Is it weird?_

Once the question has occurred to him as well as several others - _why does he like one thing from Rey but have an equal fondness for how_ soft _Finn is with him?_ How can he so easily feel such strong connections to both of them? - they nag ceaselessly in his brain. It's not a desire to be 'normal' - whatever _that_ is, in a universe as big as Poe's is, but a need to understand.

It's risky and difficult to get personal communications out. Poe doesn't ask for them often. He gets immediate approval on a comm to Yavin-IV. 

"Did you crash again?" Kes asks, answering Poe with his bath robe on and a cup of caf in his hands. Poe realizes it's just after dawn there, and could kick himself for calling so early - his anxiousness has made him forget things.

"Good to see you, too, Dad," Poe says, fondly. He feels lighter just to see his father's familiar face.

"Well, I know it's dangerous to send a signal out," Kes continues, in a dry tone. "But you only call when you survive something these days. I guess I should be grateful you're more prone to impact than-"

"I didn't crash," Poe laughs. His father grins at him.

"Well," Kes says. "I'll reserve judgment on that until the call is over."

Poe guesses that's his opening. They don't have much time - by necessity, transmissions are short. 

"I have some questions about - well, biology, I guess," Poe says, then he could kick himself. Kes doesn't lunge for the opening to make a wisecrack like Poe would. 

"Have you started changing again?" Kes asks, turning the cup back and forth in his hands. 

"Yeah," Poe says, clarifying, "only when I want to."

"Alright," Kes allows. "Only when you want to. So what's the issue?"

Poe's not sure how he can covers all of the story in less than ten minutes. Not to his satisfaction, anyway, and if this isn't normal - or if it _is_ \- well, it's a mess. 

"So," Poe says, as simply as possible. "I like when this girl pushes me around."

Kes raises an eyebrow. "Poe, you _always_ liked that."

"I don't mean anything violent." Poe continues. "I just like that she _can_ push me around. It's somehow... _reassuring_? And that's what I'm stuck on. Finn I like too, but he's gentle."

"Is there a question in here?" Kes prompts.

"Is this," Poe says, making an encompassing gesture. "Because of that _genetic_ thing?"

Kes looks at him for a long moment, still acute after all these years. "Poe."

Poe listens attentively, needing the answer.

"Like any species, we're predisposed to some things," Kes says. "You'll be inclined to form a Raft with your closest companions. Play and contact are how we form bonds, and social structure is important to us. Of course you like feeling bonded to others, and of course you like feeling like you belong and knowing _where_ you belong. The rest is as individual as anybody is."

Poe sits back. "I just didn't want it to be... some biological _imperative_ thing."

Kes snorts. "I can tell you with absolute confidence that any, uh, imperatives you have are going to be perfectly compatible with whoever you're feeling amorous towards."

Poe already, on some level, knows that. So far, it's worked without a hitch. But the reassurance from someone who _knows_ is good to hear.

"I don't want to think that it'd fade away with no reason," Poe says, and in his thoughts, he sees Ben.

"I got nervous when I met your mom, too," Kes assures Poe. "Flings are one thing, but _bonds_ , love - you want them to be strong. It's hard not to worry when it seems like such a big difference."

Poe takes a deep breath - bonds, love... was this all that? _Does that mean I have to think about it as a forever sort of thing?_ That thought's just a little terrifying. He switches topic.

"What's a Raft?" Poe asks, going back to an earlier point.

"Like a 'pack' of wolves, but since we float," Kes says. "A Raft. Your one or two - or more, I suppose - closest connections."

Poe likes it. His _pack_.

"Well," Kes says. "When do I get to meet them?"

-

The next time all three of them are together, Poe sprawls in a boneless, utterly relaxed heap over both of their laps as they pamper him, he supposes anyone who _wouldn't_ enjoy this is the weird one.

His father had said - what? _Completely compatible._ Poe can't think of two words that better describe how he feels about his Raft. Especially, with Finn's fingers combing through his hair. Then, finally, _blissfully_ pushing broad, soothing strokes behind Poe's ears. It's soothing. Grounding.

Rey's touch is a little more absent, her fingers curled into the soft place behind his knee, touch alternating between a reassuring pressure and a light tickle.

"Do you two ever mind," Poe begins, so relaxed that he thinks he'd admit _anything_ , including how much he likes this. "That I'm, uh..."

He glances up at Finn. He knows the answer already in the soft focus of his dark eyes.

"No," Rey says, without needing the rest of the statement. 

"Mmm-nnn," Finn negates. "Not anymore."

"I don't even mind finding all that fur in the shower drain," Rey continues brightly.

"Well," Poe says, "You spoiled me with encouragement, what can I say?"

"Say? Nothing," Rey says.

"Do?" Finn puts in, gently teasing. "Clean up after yourself, hotshot."

"I love it when you boss me around," Poe confesses in his total contentment.

"We know," Rey says. "And when we win."

"You could push back a little," Finn tells him. "We don't mind that, either."

This serves as enough of a request to launch a furious round of wrestling. Somewhere between the dizzying rush of rough housing and all three of them winding up in a pile on the floor where there's room for flailing limbs and odd bodily configurations for leverage, Poe realizes he really _is_ going to have to introduce them to his father.

-

The End.

**Author's Note:**

> -Happy valentine's day! Have some Otter!Poe  
> -I bet you'd thought you'd seen the last of this. SURPRISE, Motherfuckers?


End file.
